ESXi Embedded Host Client

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understand that Flings are experimental and should not be run on
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The ESXi Embedded Host Client has been officially released for ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0 and ESXi 6.5. We continue to release Fling versions with the latest bug fixes and features. Fling features are not guaranteed to be implemented into the product.

Contributors

The ESXi Embedded Host Client has been officially released for ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0 and ESXi 6.5. We continue to release Fling versions with the latest bug fixes and features. Fling features are not guaranteed to be implemented into the product.

The ESXi Embedded Host Client is a native HTML and JavaScript application
and is served directly from your ESXi host! It should perform much better than
any of the existing solutions.

Please note that the Host Client cannot be used to manage vCenter.

We welcome any feedback and bug reports. You can post your feedback here
on the VMware Labs site, in the VMware.com community forums, or using the
Host Client's built-in Feedback tool under the Help menu.

Download the VIB here. If you are looking to automate installation of the latest VIB, we also provide a copy of the latest VIB here.

Known Issues

On hosts using ESXi 6.0 Update 1 or lower and ESXi 5.5 Patch 8 or lower which are assigned a VMware vSphere Hypervisor license (the free license from VMware.com), all modification operations will fail silently. This issue has been resolved in ESXi 6.0 U2 and 5.5 Patch 8.

Hosts with ESXi 6.0 before Update 2 which have a sub-domain name with a combined cookie size of >8KB in-browser web console sessions may fail to initialize. A workaround is to clear cookies or run the host client in an incognito-type window, or alternatively, use the standalone VMware Remote Console application.

For ESXi 5.5 hosts before Update 2, you must ensure to append a trailing / (forward slash) to the URL after /ui. The URL must be https://<esxhost>/ui/

What's missing?

The Embedded Host Client is currently undergoing development. We are working
hard to bring the functionality level to that of the vSphere Client, but we're
not there yet. Here's what we know is missing:

Resource pool management

Comprehensive performance chart UI with access to all performance counters

VMware Remote Console VIBs

Installation of the VMRC VIBs is optional and intended to facilitate
downloading VMRC in situations where access to VMware.com is not possible. The
VIBs are installed into the /locker partition of your host's locally attached
disk. This partition has limited space, and so care should be taken to ensure
that sufficient space is available. Each VIB is roughly 20 MB in size.

Open source disclosure

We provide an open source disclosure package for the required packages.

A complete open source disclosure can be found in the About dialog of
the Host Client.

Feedback

We welcome any feedback or bug reports. Please post here in the Comments or
Bugs tab or in the VMware Technology Network community forum.

The ESXi Embedded Host Client has been officially released for ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0 and ESXi 6.5. We continue to release Fling versions with the latest bug fixes and features. Fling features are not guaranteed to be implemented into the product.

You must have a web browser installed with JavaScript and cookies enabled.

Browser compatibility

Supported Browsers

Mac

Windows

Linux

Chrome

25+

25+

25+

Firefox

20+

15+

15+

IE

x

10+

-

Opera

12+

15+

untested

Safari

5.1+

5.1+

-

The ESXi Embedded Host Client has been officially released for ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0 and ESXi 6.5. We continue to release Fling versions with the latest bug fixes and features. Fling features are not guaranteed to be implemented into the product.

Installation

The easiest way to install a VIB is to download it directly on the ESXi host. Alternatively, you can download it to your local machine and use scp to push it to your ESXi Host.

All installation techniques require you to enable SSH on your ESXi host, using DCUI or the vSphere web client.

If your ESXi host has internet access, you can install directly from URL.

ssh root@<esx ip or hostname> esxcli software vib install -v <URL>

where <URL> is the URL to the VIB from the VMware.com Flings website or somewhere you have locally hosted it.

If the VIB installation completes successfully, you should now be able to navigate a web browser to https://<esx ip or hostname>/ui and the login page should be displayed.

If you have downloaded the VIB to your local machine, you will need to push it to ESXi using scp.

The ESXi Embedded Host Client has been officially released for ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0 and ESXi 6.5. We continue to release Fling versions with the latest bug fixes and features. Fling features are not guaranteed to be implemented into the product.

Version 1.31.0 build 9277095 (Fling 21) - July 20, 2018

General

Resolve several issues related to dropdown selection

Update NTP UX

Update AngularJS to 1.6.10

Other minor bug fixes

Version 1.29.0 build 8122819 (Fling 20) - March 28, 2018

General

Reset selection on vm deletion

Fix issue with datastore wizard on very large datastores

Update available rdm disk list in vm wizard

Correct miscalculation of datastore total in wizard

Better support for NSX networks

Fix clicking issues on full-screen and new tab console screen

Prevent password maangers from autofilling optional field on login page.

Override firefox input:disabled background color to make text in disabled inputs more readable.

Let hostd determine the filename of newly created disks.

Don't restrict the number of disks a VM can have.

Prevent regex replace of undefined ova property description.

Add support for adding group permissions.

Address an issue where new VM disks are not stored on the correct datastore.

Version 1.17.0 build 5214684 (Fling 16) - March 17, 2017

Minor features and bugfixes

General

Support for limited-access users. Assign permissions to a user on one or more specific VMs,
allowing them to log in an interact with only those VMs. It is no longer necessary to assign
host-level read-only permissions to allow limited users to log in.

Address some issues with the PCI devices table showing data in decimal rather than hexadecimal.

Latest localization translations included.

Fix issue where host client settings were not saved server-side with ESXi 5.5.

Update to Angular 1.3.20 to address crash on login issue with Google Chrome.

Fix VIB updater when proxy is used but no username/password is supplied.

Add warning to About dialog if running version differs from installed version (i.e. host client is still cached).

Fix a couple of issues in the startup script that might cause an error when updating the VIB on a live system.

Improvements to Autostart configuration - ability to configure per-VM settings, make the operations more clear.

Fix permissions dialog issue in Safari.

Fix issue when uploading/downloading files that contain special characters.

Improved validation on scheduling affinity field in VM editor.

Optimizations to Navigator when loading object counts.

Fix issue in VM editor in CPU socket-count dropdown when hyperthreading is enabled.

Allow selection of USB 3.0 controller even if guest OS does not support such controllers.

Address navigator object name display issue in Firefox on Linux.

Better error reporting when uploading an OVA fails due to a disk upload failure.

Fix a bug where newly created or registered VMs may not be automatically loaded into the VM list.

Support VMRC for Linux download from host.

Add Send Ctrl-Alt-Del menu item to top level Actions in console if guest OS is Windows.

Add fix for ESXi 5.1 when editing a VM when checking for SR-IOV ethernet devices, which are unsupported on 5.1.

Correctly handle OVA files that are missing the OperatingSystemSection.

Version 1.8.1 build 4355717 (Fling 11) - September 9, 2016

Minor features and bugfixes

General

Open SSH console to host - users of Google Chrome will see a menu item when clicking the Host actions menu linking them to the Chrome Web Store to install the Chrome SSH Client. After installation, users can initiate an SSH session to the host quickly and easily from the Host Client on any platform (Windows, Mac OS and Linux).

Handle several additional property types when deploying an OVF template

Version 1.7.1 build 4215448 (Fling 10.1), August 2, 2016

This is is a point release to address a bug which causes the client to crash when an invalid VM is encountered in the VM list.

Version 1.7.0 build 4186463 (Fling 10), July 28, 2016

This is mostly a bugfix release. There are no major features being introduced.

General

We have a new Feedback dialog that allows you to provide immediate feedback from within the application, rather than going to the Flings website. You can also take a screen shot and highlight/redact areas that you want to raise issues about.

More translations from English to the other supported languages.

Ability to resize and reorder columns in tables, such changes should also be persistent now.

The welcome notification is now specific to Host Client, rather than using /etc/motd. However, use of this will require that you restart the management agents on the host after installing the VIB, or restarting the entire host.

VM

Fixed an issue where exiting a full screen console by pressing ESC would leave the client unusable.

Ability to change the default console to VMRC rather than in-browser when clicking on a VM's screen shot.

Some minor changes to the OVA/OVF deployment summary screen to avoid confusing failures.

Added several new columns to the VM table, e.g. annotation, guest OS

Networking

Removing a standard virtual switch will now also remove the portgroups attached to that switch.

Version 1.5.0 build 3976049 (Fling 9), June 6, 2016

General

Log file viewers now have search/highlight ability

Configuration is now stored as host advanced configuration variables rather than in browser local storage. This means that configuration is persisted across different browsers and different user machines.

Column visibility in all tables is remembered

Host

Add/Edit/Remove users

Add/Edit/Remove roles

Assign permissions to Host and virtual machines

Auto-start configuration UI has been added

VM

Fixed an issue where some dropdowns would not populate when editing or creating a VM (issue was identified using Safari)

Added support for NIC teaming and traffic shaping for vSwitches and Port groups

Version 1.3.0 build 3841871 (Fling 8) - May 2, 2016

General

Table/grid filtering search and pattern highlighting

Most tables now offer right click support in all columns

Automatically fix the proxy configuration when it finds the conflicting /ui endpoint

Automatically fix a missing /ticket proxy endpoint

Better handling of shrunk consoles when screen width is small and/or there are many shrunk consoles

Fixes for Login page welcome message

JSON Parse error has been fixed

Support for {ignore}{/ignore} directives in /etc/vmware/welcome to hide some sections from Host Client but still display them on DCUI

Support for {accept}Message beside checkbox{/accept} to allow administrators to enforce acceptance of some terms before allowing users to login. This should be added to /etc/vmware/welcome. To add a message which will be shown if users do not check the checkbox, put {mustaccept}Message to users{/mustaccept} in /etc/vmware/welcome

Performance monitoring UIs for Host and VM

Filter/search input for filtering series

Remove row selection in the series grid to filter series

Remove the CPU filter dropdown on the Host performance UI

Set performance charts to use monotone interpolation for smoother lines

Host

Support for VSAN maintenance mode options

Advanced config UI behaves much better when options are changed (table is not reset, scroll position kept)

Sensors monitoring UI has been given some love

Virtual Machines

Support for adding Sound controllers in VM settings

Better validation on adding serial ports in VM settings

Better UI for modifying VM advanced settings

Fixed some issues when using Host Client against ESXi 5.0 when editing VMs

Support for adding/removing USB passthrough devices. Currently it's not possible to remove a USB passthrough device when the VM is powered off or suspended, only when powered on.

Disk and network charts have been added to the VM performance monitoring UI

Deploying OVA VM images now has no size restrictions and much better browser performance and support

More options to send keys to guest using Actions menu (function keys, Ctrl-c)

Access to limited Actions menu when console is in full-screen mode

Download VMRC directly from the ESXi host if you install the VMware-Remote-Console VIBs that are available as downloads from this site. Otherwise the original behavior sending the user to VMware.com remains unchanged.

Create VMFS datastore (currently only on disks that don't have a partition table)

Extend VMFS datastore (currently only onto disks that don't have a partition table)

Mount/Unmount VMFS datastore

Host

Improved host performance monitoring UI

Composite CPU/memory figure

Networking

Firewall ruleset listing (currently read-only)

Version 0.1.0 build 2976804 (Fling 1)

VM operations (Power on, off, reset, suspend, etc)

Creating a new VM, from scratch or from OVF/OVA (limited OVA support)

Configuring NTP on a host

Displaying summaries, events, tasks and notifications/alerts

Providing a console to VMs

Configuring host networking

Configuring host advanced settings

Configuring host services

The ESXi Embedded Host Client has been officially released for ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0 and ESXi 6.5. We continue to release Fling versions with the latest bug fixes and features. Fling features are not guaranteed to be implemented into the product.

The ESXi Embedded Host Client has been officially released for ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0 and ESXi 6.5. We continue to release Fling versions with the latest bug fixes and features. Fling features are not guaranteed to be implemented into the product.